We worked with the World Bank, a large international organization, to look at desktop environments of the near future. We chose to focus on a subset of problems that employees regularly have to struggle with:

finding people who can help

searching documents and resources

juggling many roles (e.g. a person can be in charge of three projects, member of two task forces, editor of the bank magazine, and organizer of the holiday party.)

A great deal of personal organization is required to manage these roles whose goals, partners, tools and
documents are likely to be very different. The previous research on role theory [1] or CSCW focuses mainly on the coordination of individuals while our goal is to assist individuals manage their multiple roles.